Intel Hyper-Threading Technology

Intel Hyper-Threading Technology (HT Technology) enables each processing core to run multiple tasks or “threads” at the same time. Intel HT Technology also improves overall performance on threaded software by increasing processor throughput. For each physical processor core, the operating system addresses two virtual processors. For example, a processor with two cores with HT Technology will be capable of 4-way multitasking.

Intel HT Technology is available on prior generation Intel Core processors, 2nd generation Intel Core processors, and Intel Xeon processors. On my laptop I have an Intel Core i7-2630QM processor with 4 cores which enables 8-way multitasking. I can confirm this on Windows by looking at the Device Manger which lists 8 CPUs under “Processors” as shown below.

Another way to confirm this is to view the “Performance” tab in the Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del); in my case it shows 8 CPU windows as shown below.